Towns should be proactive on wind turbine rules

Posted to a Rochester New York Newspaper Editorial • December 18, 2009
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As the cold winter wind whips through the region, there’s one bright spot to think about — the state’s potential to harness that energy into electricity.

But that potential also brings concerns about wind turbines making noise, harming birds and disturbing the bucolic landscape.

That’s why municipalities need to take a proactive stance similar to what the town of Victor did this week.

The town board adopted a law that sets up rules regarding wind turbines. Although there are currently no wind turbines in Victor, the board decided to be proactive after seeing problems elsewhere.

Specifically, town boards in Prattsburgh and Italy have confronted lawsuits from a wind energy company.

Despite the issues, wind power is an alternative energy that belongs in a strategy of reducing this country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Wind power doesn’t pollute and it’s a way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And New York’s high electricity rates have long been a concern of businesses.

In terms of wind power, New York state ranks 15th in wind energy potential, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The Lake Ontario region is well suited, and the New York Power Authority is soliciting proposals from developers for lake-based turbines.

Several wind energy companies have cropped up in the region, and there’s potential to grow those, which means more job opportunities.

On Wednesday, the (New York) state Public Service Commission gave those efforts a boost when it pledged $200 million to help further develop the production of electricity by wind, water and biomass. The goal now is to have renewable energy providing 30 percent of electricity consumption in the state by 2015.

Baltimore City Zoning has it’s first Home Wind Turbine zoning question put before it according to the Baltimore Sun.

Generally, turbines work best when they are 30 feet above everything else and have few barriers within 500 feet, which isn’t possible for a city rowhouse. But Stimmel said it’s possible to power a city house with turbines now available, and the technology is evolving fast.

“There is a lot of public interest in such turbines, and they are getting approved,” said Stimmel. “Still, I don’t suspect it will be a huge trend in the cities. More people will opt for solar panels or buying renewable energy from the power company.”

Looking to offset rising electricity bills, Marsha Vitow has a modern solution: installing Baltimore’s first residential wind turbine on the roof of her Federal Hill rowhouse.

It’s a logical move in a city whose mayor has pushed extra tree plantings, recycling and other issues on a “cleaner, greener” agenda, but Vitow has run into some old-fashioned problems. Decades-old zoning laws don’t account for a wind turbine, and some of her neighbors say the eight-foot-tall contraption will hurt their rooftop views and their property values.

Small Wind Energy Systems
From this graphic it would seem Eastern Maryland is the most likely place to construct Wind Energy Systems.
The large 3 blade wind turbines could harm birds, smaller 30 bladed small wind energy systems seem a better solution (not to mention they cost a whole lot less)

Welcome to Wind Energy Systems. The purpose of this blog is to further local government awareness of the need for better regulations concerning the implementation of small wind energy system and wind energy tower zoning regulations.

The Frederick County Maryland Government is pondering these questions as I blog.

This is the definition of Wind Powered Generators (with a few comparatives to wind turbines):

This is a discussion of what Wind Powered Generators are, and what Wind Powered Generators are used for; with some comparatives to wind turbines.

First of all let’s get the definition straight: Wind Powered Generators are not the same as wind turbines. The two are different. This is an industry standard distinction: as coined as a definition for industry standardization by reasonablepower.com.

Need for this definition has been created by multitudes of wind turbines (which use airfoil designs and attempt airfoil lift potentially for the capture and conversion of wind energy) being falsely advertised as Wind Powered Generators (which use flat-plate technology for the capture and conversion of wind energy). Wind Powered Generators were, *as defined herein*, originated and set to definition, in the United States of America within our own process. The basic design of a Wind Powered Generator is similar to the old farmer’s windmill, which was used by those old farmers for pumping water. For truth in advertising, we could not call this design a “windmill,” because our design is neither for raising water nor for irrigation purposes. We therefore used a new term, vary rarely found on the internet and very rarely found in other advertisings, that of “Wind Powered Generator.” We got this term from a journeyman carpenter in Frederick, Maryland, U.S.A. He said that for industry standardization, the term must describe, in understandable English, that the generator uses wind for power, thus a “Wind Powered Generator.”

He also said that the name must stand out as different from those silly three bladed waste-of-space wind turbines. As we recall, when we first started advertising on the internet, a Google search for the phrase “Wind Powered Generator” brought up zero commercial products. After one month of our advertising on the internet a Google search for the phrase “Wind Powered Generator” brought up about 100 listings. At this time (December, 2008) the total is up to 419,000 with variations accounting for 1,572,000 more. Not to specifically pick on anyone, but when we went to many of those pages and traced them to their source, a lot were products with no definite specifications, no real explanation (and curiously not even a price), except to call their product a “wind powered generator.” Hmmmm… As you can see from our home page and the geographic estimator therein, it is already far too late for the knock-off, imitators to swamp the net and stop us from existing. So, we could simply let the false advertisers, claiming to be selling a similar product to our’s go unanswered, but for one logic: Truth in Advertising. We are Christians and to us truth in advertising is a big deal. We take truth in advertising seriously. We set forth the definitive definition of a “Wind Powered Generator” yet again. (We did this a few times before, but here it is again.) The laws and customs of the people of the United States of America discourage and protect against false advertising and specifically uphold “truth in advertising.” To align the advertising of Wind Powered Generators with truth in advertising we are setting forth for all the world to see the definition of Wind Powered Generators. That is not to say that other people have never built wind sourcing which are similar to those defined herein, but rather to set to print and to distinct between wind turbines which base their wind capture logic on aerodynamic airfoil lift and Wind Powered Generators which base their wind capture logic on flat-plate technology. Other people may be lost and confused as to how to capture wind energy, but when we build Wind Powered Generators, we try to use reason and logic. That is not to say that we are perfect, but rather that we are differentiating our product type from others.